


Cruel

by Niler



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-24
Updated: 2016-07-24
Packaged: 2018-07-26 10:37:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7570906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Niler/pseuds/Niler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Liam is 'not happy'</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cruel

**Author's Note:**

> This is what procrastination on a Sunday morning looks like :o
> 
> Fluff.
> 
> (warning: it's canon fic)

 

 

 

Zayn embarrasses him on a regular, and doesn’t care.

 

“Ah, come on, babe, what else am I gonna do? How can I write about anything else? If you want me to stop writing about you then you’d best fucking stop being you then.”

 

And he’ll kiss him – more - just to ‘prove’ something – or something.

 

And of course he likes to come with the: “You do it too. How’s it okay for you to do it and not for me? _I_ don’t get shook when you write about _me_.”

 

Yeah, well, he doesn’t write about him like _that_ , does he? He just does it in a normal way, a ‘this is about someone I adore, but you know what I ain’t gonna embarrass him by making it bloody obvious to anyone who knows him that it’s about him!’ way.

 

Every time Pillow Talk plays he has to make sure he doesn’t accidentally meet anyone’s eye.

 

And then there’s the rest of it…

 

It’s funny because it’s only when you hear the guy stacking shelves at Sainsburys singing: “Your body hurts me, looping round like cctv’ that you get just how bloody mortifying it is to be immortalized on ‘vinyl’.

 

Zayn writes about loving him a lot, but he bloody well knows it’s the sex not the love people tend to focus on.

And it has to be said that when you’re writing it, even listening to it with him, when he runs the finished track by you it honestly is fine.

 

It just becomes a completely different thing once it’s out there and you hear it when you’re not expecting to.

 

It’s hard sometimes not to actually come out and tell the world these songs are about him. If they were out as a couple people would automatically _know_ and maybe yeah, they would look at him a certain way (he knows this because the people who do know he’s with Zayn definitely look at him a certain way), but maybe not. Maybe the ‘legitimacy’ coupled with the searing intimacy would make them react differently (not have their sticky fingers all over it, trying to interpret what it could possibly mean).

 

Zayn’s different from him, definitely has a way of handling things, looking at things that Liam generally finds quite elusive.

 

Zayn knows what he knows and that’s the end of it. He doesn’t give a stuff what people think and write - and get wrong.

 

Zayn’s all: ‘it don’t fucking mean that and they can say it does all fucking day long. What difference does it make?’

 

And that’s great – for Zayn.

 

Zayn’s great at compartmentalizing. _He_ has a harder time.

 

When he sees all the headlines saying the songs Zayn wrote for him are about other people he does mind, does want to ‘phone up the paper and set the record straight’.

 

That’s what Zayn asked if he intended to do after he’d gone on a long rant about certain articles he’d come across.

 

“I bloody well should. This is just fucking bullshit.”

 

Zayn rolls his eyes. “Babe.”

 

“I know and you _know_ I’m trying, but look, look at this shit.”

 

Zayn skims the article, shrugs. “Come on, babe, you know what they’re like.”

 

“But they shouldn’t do that. They didn’t fucking consult you, ask you or anything, so what right do they have to fucking write that pile of shit?”

 

“It’s the media, babe – you know-“

 

“How could they even think it’s about her? Look at this bit. For fuck’s sake. How does that even fit?”

 

Zayn dutifully looks at it, shakes his head, puts an arm around him, hugs him. “Babe, don’t let it get to you.”

 

“I swear to god, when it comes out that we’re together, the first thing I’m gonna fucking do is gather up all these fucking bullshit ‘articles’ and publish them all over twitter, insta. Stupid fucking bastards!”

 

Zayn kisses him, and Liam can feel him silently laughing.

 

Yeah, he’s genuinely pissed off, but even he can see how ridiculous he’s being.

 

“Okay, then, mate, watch when I drop my first track and they think it’s about Cheryl, see how much of a laugh riot it’ll be then.”

 

“Not gonna bother me, babe.” Zayn’s hands are getting friendly, but he has no intention of getting distracted – just yet.

 

“Okay, we’ll see.”

 

He already knows it’s going to bother Zayn. Zayn, in many, many ways is worse than he could ever be. It’s just not always easy to predict what’s going to trigger him.

 

Like just generally hating brunettes…

 

The fact that Cheryl’s with Kim doesn’t make it okay. There are just certain things that trigger Zayn and Liam understands since there are certain things that trigger him too.

Zayn’s okay with Cheryl, but he really doesn’t like her accent, reminding him as it does of Perrie, and on his bad days he’ll go to town on her in a seriously unreasonable way.

 

Liam doesn’t’ care, since he gets it, knows it’s best to let him get it all out periodically, even if Cheryl’s the target when it’s not really about her.

 

He likes Cheryl well enough, but not that much, not enough to defend her from Zayn’s scathing tongue.

 

He rants, Zayn rants – it works to get the poison out when necessary and neither of them ever tries to talk the other down.

 

It would be so easy to allow the craziness to infect them, get inside their relationship and break it down, so they are very clear on the lines; on what they will and will not accept; from and for each other.

 

It’s just not always easy to not let it get to you.

 

**

 

 

 

Zayn’s very clever with the way he puts images and words together, somehow easily managing to convey one thing on the surface, something else entirely to those who know.

 

He’s actually stupidly surprised when he reads all the tweets and comments and ‘official’ ‘articles’ saying his songs are about women. So easy to forget that not everyone’s in Zayn’s head, knows Zayn from the inside out, knows how he thinks, how he puts things together.

 

Probably explains why he’s so incensed about the wrong-headed articles.

 

If they knew Zayn like he knows Zayn…

 

But no-one’s there when they play, no-one’s there when they discuss how to present their lyrics to get past the filters, past the mindset of the general public, so no, they don’t know.

 

It’s just a little disconcerting to see what you regard as something pretty much lit up in neon lights because it’s so obvious completely elude the vast majority of the audience.

 

Makes you wonder just how much _you’ll_ be able to put out here and get away with too…

 

**

Zayn has so many songs written; some with him as co-writer, many just by himself and it’s exciting to work with him on the next album, both of them enjoying (far more than they really should) the fact that the public simply won’t be aware just how involved they both are in each other’s projects.

 

They’ll see Zayn’s next album as something he wrote in 2016 whereas it’s the continuation of the first album with all the songs – the majority – written some time ago, and will simply complete their love story.

 

And of course he’ll be doing the same thing – writing about them, but in different way to Zayn.

 

He needs to state his point of view, speak of Danielle in greater depth on his album.

 

Zayn gave him some verses on his album to do that, but he needs to have it in his own voice and for it to be his name to the words.

 

He doesn’t necessarily want to diss her but he needs to let it be known what went on and just how much it affected him; how close she came to breaking them.

 

He’s got the songs already written (so they do come from that place where he was ready to diss her), has had them ready for ages and it’s just now a matter of him and Zayn working together to create another way of telling their story.

 

It would be so different if people knew they were a couple, but they don’t, so this way they have to be really creative, so those who do know will be able to easily recognize what they’re doing.

 

He is really looking forward to that challenge and of course he is now explicitly aiming to embarrass the fuck out of Zayn the way Zayn’s done to him.

 

Of course, Zayn being Zayn, he’ll just be really smug about it and say something like: ‘took you so long, babe?’

 


End file.
